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The most-produced play in the 2015/2016 North American theater season, Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize winner, Disgraced, deftly raises issues of identity, race, the limitations of perception, and the American Dream. A taut, provocative drama, Disgraced mines the complexities of our modern times and relationships, as well as the need for empathy in navigating the intricacies of our interactions. As we enter our final week of performances, I met with the cast to discuss the play, audience reactions, and the current state of public discourse in America. Below is an excerpt of my conversation with Felicia Curry (Jory), Joe Isenberg (Isaac), Nehal Joshi (Amir), Samip Raval (Abe), and Ivy Vahanian (Emily).

What discoveries have you made during the process; either in rehearsals or in performances? Any surprises along the way?

Felicia: I was surprised at how viscerally and vocally people respond to the show. They aren’t afraid to respond – regardless of what the response is — laughter, gasps —

Ivy: — speaking to us.

Why do you think that is?

Felicia: I think it’s the way that Timothy [Douglas] directed it. Because of the way he’s allowed us to do the play, people really feel like they’re there, in that apartment. They don’t feel like they’re watching something, they feel like they’re a part of it. Of course they’re going to respond because they’re in it with us.

Ivy: Because of the structure of the play and its pace, the responses just fly out of them.

Nehal: I’m surprised by how delicate the play is. There are so many issues in it and it brings up so many emotions in people, and they want to share those emotions with you.

Samip: There are a lot of different kinds of people who come to this play and who respond to it with such variety. That’s been incredible.

Joe: It feels like a scalpel of a narrative. It’s very delicate, very sharp, and the way that it affects people is very deep and slicing in a way.

Nehal: In a broader sense, it’s surprising how much the play can hold for everyone, and how sympathetic the audiences are to all of us, even though we say and do horrible things to each other.

Ivy: We’ve very effectively gotten out of our own way. And we’ve loved each other through the really hard stuff. I learn things every single time. It’s exhilarating and it also just exists. It’s just there.

One of the topics brought up in the play is the debate between justice and order, and how each of your characters has a different view of the issue.

Felicia: The interesting thing is that I’d usually be like Emily and say “justice, always.” But the more I do this show and say these lines, I understand why Jory chooses order. I know it’s hard for people to hear, especially coming from a black woman. I think what Jory is saying is that without order we cannot enforce justice. In order to have the justice that we want maybe we need to correct the way things are ordered.

Ivy: When you say that to me onstage, it’s this wonderfully revealing moment of everywhere Jory comes from. That’s the order. The consciousness of honoring that. It becomes very personal —

Felicia: It is personal.

Ivy: — not just intellectual thought.

Nehal: It’s a hard statement for me. There’s a level of old racism versus new racism. My initial reaction when I heard it was that Jory’s pulling away from her own race. This gets into how delicate the play is. Each one of us has our own thoughts about these lines. On one level, there’s the idea that you have to become an individual to become an American. You have to pull yourself away from your identity – your tribe – to become an American, to become part of a bigger tribe.

Samip: Justice as an incentive is holding on to a principle, but how long can you hold on to that?

Felicia: And is justice afforded to everybody?

Ivy: No it’s not.

Nehal: I don’t think that’s what people are thinking though.

Ivy: I don’t think people think that either.

Nehal: It actually surprises me that people don’t think that.

How does the play intersect with the public discourse going on in the country at large right now?

Joe: I think people have a philosophical response to questions on the one hand. But if I’m talking to my wife, or a close friend, in a private context, I may reveal a potentially contradictory point of view as I search out how to articulate that kind of response and how it's constantly evolving. I do believe that people put on masks for the philosophies they put together, but in a private context they can be more vulnerable and, through that, they can be potentially more inflammatory.

Felicia: When you come to this show, for 90 minutes you listen to what Amir has to say. Actually listen, not pretend to listen. How you perceive it and take it away may be different, but that kind of listening is not happening consistently around the country and around the world right now. And I think that’s the big difference. People are actively listening.

Ivy: I think that Trump – ok I’m just going to go there – he has decided to deal on an emotional, inflammatory level, because that will incite people. A lot of people are hungry for that. They want to live on a more visceral level.

Felicia: Abe says it at the end. ‘It’s not fair to us. They took our stuff and they brought us here and said do this, and they don’t understand that we’re upset?’ Take a second to actually listen and reflect on that. That’s what the show does. Hopefully, at least for a minute, people hear it.

Ivy: Something like 60% of this nation have never met a Muslim person.

Samip: Well that’s an order versus justice moment right there. Just that – that interaction.

Nehal: The great writer, Kevin Smith, wrote in Mallrats, “Understanding is reached only after confrontation.” It’s actually very apropos for our play and the national dialogue. There’s a lot of fear and rhetoric towards Islam. Political candidates are using it to gain support because fear is an easy way to get somebody to listen to you. It happens on the news every night. People are using fear rhetoric to try to assuage their feelings about Islam. People have a lot of fear because, especially since 9/11, Islam is, on some level, a faceless religion. And the faces that you are given, often by the news, are war-like faces, or faces of aggression, which is troubling for the religion. That fear and rhetoric that is used towards Islam is very reminiscent of rhetoric that has been used towards other religions at other points in world history. So it’s important to have a play like this where people can walk into the theater and see a person who they may have seen demonized, and hopefully be able to rationalize the arguments. I think that’s an important interaction to have. Understanding comes through confrontation. Thanks, Kevin Smith.

What keeps bringing you back to theater?

Nehal: We live in a world that is becoming increasingly isolated. Because of that, we all hunger for connection with each other. There’s electricity that happens in a theater that no other art form can achieve. Film can blow things up; we can’t blow things up. Television can let you follow the storyline of one person for a year; we can’t do that. But what we can do is be there, living in front of you, every moment. There’s a connection that happens between everyone in the audience and an actor that is palpable, visceral and important. Because we can tell stories. That’s how our histories are passed along. Our stories are the things that last.

Joe: Life is hard and serious, and all the subjects that we’re talking about onstage are difficulties in our world. It’s a wonderful thing to be in an environment where you can have those conversations and live those lives and yet, as you’re doing that, it’s all play. The theater is a beautiful escape where you can examine life in a totally joyful way. And by joyful I mean free, and by free I mean vulnerable.

Felicia: It allows people to come in and see and hear people, comments, questions, that they may not see and hear in their everyday lives. It gives them an opportunity to be exposed to it and acknowledge it, and then go home and think about it. There are a lot of things that I still have a hard time dealing with and processing, and theater allows me to be these people who process differently than I do. Through performing these parts in these shows, I see how somebody else would deal with and react to a situation, and use that in my everyday life.

Ivy: The theater is a space where you’re allowed to be everything you are; all your messy parts, all your lovely parts. You’re asked to open yourself up and discover new things without judgement. The more I do it, the clearer I become. That is the joy of theater; to be willing to examine our truth while sharing the same breath as the audience. It’s a safe place for everybody involved. It’s magical. It’s like my church. And that I get to do that? It’s a gift.

Samip: There are very few places where people come to tell the truth. The theater will call you out if you’re lying. You can’t hide.

Nehal: And the irony is that none of it is real.

Samip: Yeah it’s not real, but for a lot of people, it’s the only place where they can be real. Let’s take 90 minutes and just tell the truth.

(Photos: Joe Isenberg as Isaac, Nehal Joshi as Amir, Ivy Vahanian as Emily and Felicia Curry as Jory in Disgraced at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. Samip Raval as Abe and Nehal Joshi as Amir in Disgraced at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. Photos by C. Stanley Photography.)

May 02, 2016

This past November, Susan Rome, who plays Lady Bird in our production of All the Way, visited the LBJ Ranch in Johnson City, Texas. As we come to the close of the run of this amazing production, Susan shared some of her observations from that visit.

November 5, 2015

...Flew into Austin yesterday and went directly to Johnson City and the LBJ Ranch, also known as "The Texas White House." The term was used as a pejorative, since LBJ spent almost 500 of his 2,000 days in office there, but there was much work done at the ranch. There were 72 phone lines going into the house, and his office was a hub of activity. The house is restored to its 1963-69 splendor, except for shag carpeting. Photos are not allowed in the house, but I snuck a few!

The Hill Country is beautiful, and the Pedernales River (pronounced "Perdenales" here), runs right by the front of the house. The live oak out front, an ancient tree, oddly not deciduous, completes the bucolic setting, which must have been in contrast to the amount of activity around the house in the '60's.

It is a working ranch, sprawling. There are hundreds of white-tailed deer and Hereford cattle. Air Force One is parked outside, along with a car barn filled with about a dozen of the Johnson's vehicles.

One thing that struck me at the ranch, which takes the footprint of the original five-room house and expands it to 23 rooms, is that the rooms are small, rather cramped. For LBJ — a 6'3" man with girth and an enormous personality — it must have often felt claustrophobic. Evidently, MUCH business was conducted at the ranch, much of it al fresco, under that oak tree, where there was more space to stretch one's legs!

AUSTIN: The Capitol Building is huge, taller than the U.S. Capitol, and its facade is pink granite, the same indigenous stone that the monument at the Johnson Memorial Grove in DC is made from. Lady Bird is much-loved here. There is a stretch of the Colorado River that has been officially re-named "Lady Bird Lake".

THE LIBRARY: Barbara Cline, an archivist here, was waiting for me. She is the person who has been responsible for archiving the thousands of hours of Lady Bird's dictated diary (of which I purchased a copy). The published diary is only a minuscule fraction of the actual diary. We spoke at length about the new Betty Boyd Caroli book, and the nature of LBJ’s and Lady Bird’s relationship; the dynamic that, to the outside world, seemed like a meek wife being controlled by a bully husband.

Barbara took me into the private suite, where the Johnsons entertained and worked for the post-Presidential years of 1971-1973. It is 100% as it was; chairs have not even been reupholstered. She showed me into Lady Bird's restroom, and asked me if I wanted to step into her shower! I wish I had taken a picture of the Kelly green carpeted floor!

The artifacts, artwork, and gifts from heads of state are quite amazing. Everything is meticulously catalogued. There are archaeological artifacts from Greece, Jordan, and other places in the Middle East that are thousands of years old. One of the photos shows a gift from the President of Upper Volta, a set of sterling silver knife rests. I didn't know such a thing existed!

The Johnson Oval Office is recreated here, with the original furnishings. In nearly every room, here and at the Ranch, there are three televisions, so he could watch each of the major networks at the same time. His appetite and energy for work was so immense, that he was often up at 3 o'clock in the morning dictating letters.

There are more phone conversations available in the permanent exhibit in the museum. Three of them demonstrate the "Johnson Treatment." This man was a force! A week after the assassination, he was eager to get the Warren Commission started, and was adamant that Richard Russell be on it. Russell states that he doesn't like Chief Justice Warren and won't do it. Johnson starts off using a softer-sell tactic at first, but by the end of the phone call, he is quite threatening. His calls to Kay Graham are interesting, too. He was clear that he wanted to use the Washington Post to shame Congressional members to get to work for the American people.

Then on to the A/V department. The photo room is enormous, with HUNDREDS of binders of contact sheets, and a thousand drawers filled with playing-card sized photos. Found photos from right after the assassination; a whole series of different angles from the plane trip back from Dallas when LBJ was sworn-in, as well as photos from the 1964 Democratic convention. Listened to previously un-released audio of Lady Bird speak-singing a few lyrics of "A Spoon Full of Sugar" from Mary Poppins. Her speaking voice is interesting: there is the East Texas twang, the Alabama lilt. Then the oratorical voice she cultivated after taking public speaking lessons in the late 1950s. Her natural, casual, family voice is altogether different. Most identifiable is her modulation of final consonants. She was always kind, and there is a kind of smiling joy in her speech. Such a patient woman.HER CLOTHES! Bird was a tiny lady...she was short-waisted, small-breasted, and never accentuated her figure. Her clothes are simple and quite elegant. Her shoes (size 7, triple AAA width) are almost all under 2" heels. She wore bright colors because Lyndon liked them. Lyndon's favorite color on her was red. Her gowns are exquisite. She wore a lot of pastel colors, but was also unafraid of saturated color. She was often derided for not being as elegant as Jackie, but, in reality, she was. Her off-the-rack clothes came from Neiman-Marcus, because the Marcus family were friends.

She was completely aware of all of the criticism leveled at her, but never sunk to it. She was aware of LBJ's dalliances, but her philosophy was to draw the women closer to her. She never doubted that her husband needed her, and it is evident through the letters, photos, and witnessed kindnesses that he did. She was a pragmatic, loving woman.

These are some of the descriptors that keep coming up again and again:

grace

elegance

dignity

kindness

wisdom

courage

caring

warmth

direct gaze

innate goodness

hard-working

open-minded

a "balance wheel" for Lyndon, his closest and wisest adviser

"duty and beauty"

she thought of life as "One great adventure"

In 1934, during their courtship, she wrote to Lyndon that she hoped he wasn't considering a career in politics. Of becoming First Lady, she said, "I feel as if I'm suddenly on stage for a role I never rehearsed."

I am so excited to have had the opportunity to inhabit this spectacularly singular woman. I have a deep admiration for all that she did in her personal and professional life, and as an advocate for a better world. My personal philosophy is to try to leave the world better than I found it, and Lady Bird certainly did.

(Photos: Susan Rome at the LBJ Ranch, courtesy Susan Rome. Susan Rome as Lady Bird Johnson and Jack Willis as President Lyndon Baines Johnson in All the Way at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, April 1-May 8, 2016. Photo by Stan Barouh.)

April 28, 2016

It is a pleasure to welcome director Timothy Douglas (King Hedley II) back to Arena Stage to helm Disgraced. A warm, thoughtful, generous artist, Timothy directs with a light and fluid touch; allowing the play to unfold naturally and gracefully. During rehearsals, I sat down with Timothy to discuss Disgraced, America’s complicated relationship with race, and his love of theater.

What attracts you to Disgraced?

My own personal curiosity and conundrum of where to put the very prominent conversation about Islamophobia, Muslims in America, demonizing Muslims by way of serving political agendas in this election season, and in America at large. How do we deal with “Other”? In Disgraced, specifically dealing with Islam and Muslim culture. Of the productions of the play that I’ve seen, I’ve walked away feeling there was another layer inherent to the play yet to be ‘teased’ out, and I wondered if it were even possible to access without altering the playwright’s original intent. To be presented with that challenge was very appealing for me. The ancillary bonus was being asked back to direct at Arena, where I’m always made to feel my work is respected.

Can you articulate what it is that you wanted to tease out?

Being a man of color in America, as well as this profession, I’m not always fully ‘seen’ when I walk in a room. It doesn’t occur to people at large that I’m the director of a play at Arena Stage, particularly if it’s not a play about the Black-American experience. When some discover that I’m directing Disgraced here, I witness the adjustment of people who’ve already met me, and have decided who and what I am or, more specifically, I’d already been dismissed in their eyes, and once they’ve adjusted to the idea, there is ultimately a positive response. But, too late — as I’ve clocked the original one already. I rarely get to have a pure experience being acknowledged as a director first … it’s more often ‘African-American director’. I imagine Muslims in America experience a parallel frustration with Muslim-Americans … it seems our identity will always be hyphenated out of the gate.

On my own gentrified block in Brooklyn, for most of my life it was an entirely Afro-Caribbean neighborhood — and now it’s just me and my cousin. It was the one place in my world I could fully exhale and where I didn’t have to worry about encountering a white woman coming down the street who clutched her purse when she saw me coming, forcing me into the decision as to whether or not I should cross the street. And, if I choose not to cross the street, then unintentionally the palpable energy of my frustration comes off as the very act of perceived aggression that would cause a nervous white woman to clutch her purse. And it continues to inspire anger in me, and I remain frustrated that I have to feel that way — and, if she then happens to catch the look on my face, she actually sees the very thing that she’s terrified of … it’s a vicious little circle.

It’s a similar experiential vein I felt was missing from other productions I saw … It felt to me that the Amir’s were somewhat void of embodying the effects of such experiences which lead up to the climax of the play. But that’s not unique to Islamic culture and how Muslims are perceived. That’s every man of color’s role inside of a play that’s not culturally specific. It’s a mostly white male-driven world that Disgraced exists in. It is about a man operating outside his culture, and surrounded by people outside his culture. It’s essential to me that the production be balanced in such a way that Amir (and all the characters, for that matter) remains an individual at core and is not inherently perceived ‘a monster’.

You’ve worked with set designer Tony Cisek on over 30 productions. How would you describe your working relationship with him?

I think he’s brilliant. He reads plays like a dramaturg before he starts designing. He thinks of every aspect of the story — not just the physical environment, but how that environment is going to affect each and every character. And then from a perspective of movement. We’ve done enough projects together that he knows how I like to move actors across the stage. The thing I most appreciate is how he solves the theater space problems first. Every theater has its own particular challenges in terms of its relationship of the audience to stage; the stage space itself and how it the addition of objects affects the overall space. Tony solves the challenge of the particular theater space first, and then designs to its strengths. Other designers with whom I’ve worked design the world first, after which the problems of the space reveal themselves, and then we often spend the rest of the time problem solving. It’s inevitable that directors will do a certain amount of restaging when WE move from the rehearsal room to the theater space. With Tony’s designs I do only a minimal amount of changing. It’s how I know he’s solved the space - there are very few surprises for me.

One of things I’ve come to love about the play is the essential quality of every character. Abe has to ask Amir to help the Imam. Isaac and Jory have to come to dinner on that particular evening. If even one of them wasn’t there, the essence of the piece would be completely different. Which is also true of your cast. In order for all of these relationships to form, you had to cast these particular people.

I cast individuals. I always read with the actors at auditions. Not every actor can stand up to the rigor of reading with the director. I look for people with a certain amount of innate fortitude, and who can affect me with their arguments. I don’t need the perfect audition, nor do I require ‘the performance’. But are you going to work with me? Am I going to be influenced by your point of view? That’s what I’m looking for.

Why do you think Disgraced causes such varied and passionate reactions in audiences?

I don’t presume to know the ultimate truth of that, but I am aware that my country has not acknowledged, or doesn’t demonstrate an authentic understanding of its direct participation in the creation of Islamophobia. I was in New York on 9/11. The first 36 hours — and as bizarre as this is to say — was the most cathartic and clarifying time for what it meant to be an American. I remember thinking ‘What a horrible thing to have happened, to be sure — but now America can no longer deny the impact it’s having on the rest of the world toward the incitement of this kind of retaliation.’ I could viscerally feel that this was the prevailing sentiment around me. We as a nation could have shifted the paradigm right there. We had the support of the entire world, including parts of the Middle East. And it broke my heart to realize just how deep our collective depth of denial must be in order to live with being able to justify things like perpetrating the war in Iraq. A play like Disgraced bumps up against the stories that we have told, or are telling, ourselves, to sustain the myth of the ‘Other’ as enemy, void of the acknowledging of our participation in creating it. I think one reason people get so worked up when viewing this play is because of how it reveals its humanity through the way these individual characters respond to extreme scenarios, thus compelling us to see ourselves as being capable of justifying brutal thoughts and acts when feeling threatened.

What you said about your feelings during the first 36 hours — do you think that’s similar to what Amir says in the play about feeling proud? Or is he feeling something completely different?

I understand the moment, and Nehal Joshi, the actor playing Amir, clearly does as well, but we haven’t dissected it too much, as such a sentiment reveals itself at the depth of personal reckoning. To pull it apart would muddy the fact that it’s coming from the place within where it actually lives. For me, in the context of what I just said in terms of America’s shared responsibility about the atrocities going on in the Middle East — while not at all justifying the act of flying airplanes into buildings killing thousands, I am able to contemplate a depth of such despair and anger at aggressors that could inspire such an extreme act. Said act, for a number of Muslims, and others, was a communication to the world that ‘succeeded’ in being ‘heard’ at the depth of just how desperate things were. As Amir affirms, it’s not the actual atrocity that he’s condoning, but ‘the pride’ in the success of (finally) getting the message across. I’m not speaking for Nehal or Ayad, but that’s the best way that I can describe where the sentiment lives for me. It’s how I felt that day. They succeeded in getting our attention ... horrible, yes — but successful.

For Amir specifically, there’s such an identity struggle within the play. What connection do you see between the current climate and the situation in Disgraced?

America is no longer majority white, and will never be again. That has awakened the sleeping beast of white American dominance and an arrogance that believed it was always going to be on top, and in power, and in control. It is simply no longer a possibility. The inevitable transfer of cultural power is in play and the insanity of what we’re witnessing is the death grip with events like the current presidential campaign … I need only listen to the rhetoric of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump to understand that theirs is the response to the thread of their culture being wiped out. Identity politics isn’t new for people of color, but now that white people are compelled to address the matter, it’s become a renewed issue for us all by default, but the current knee-jerk reaction is akin to trying to get a genie back into the bottle. There’s no turning back now, however, and yet there are enough ‘angry’ people who want to ‘take their country back’. But white America doesn’t have the coping tools that black America has had for generations for dealing with a dominant culture. The world is primarily one ‘of-color’. It always has been, and white America, finally, can no longer deny it. Leaning back to the question about the reaction of this play … I do understand what you mean about the politicizing of race identity, cultural identity. But with our approach to Disgraced we’re not politicizing it, as that would be like us trying to make water wet.

As someone who directs all over the country, what creature comforts do you bring with you when you go out of town?

I bring my own sheets and my own pillow. I used to travel with my DVD collection but everything’s streaming now. And a scented candle — the current one being Moss & Sage.

What keeps bringing you back to theater?

It’s the one thing I have in my life that most successfully helps me in navigating life itself. As my full time job I get to spend my days fostering dynamic relationships and solving problems. My time in the theater has cultivated great tools for use in my own life. And, by extension, if the work I facilitate is effective, certain audience members might also gain a new way to deal with something plaguing their lives that may never have occurred to them before.

That, or maybe I can’t face reality — which is okay too. As long as theaters keep hiring me I’ll continue to work in faith that I’m doing an effective job for them … and in turn the bonus for me remains that I don’t have to face reality.

(Photo: Joe Isenberg as Isaac, Nehal Joshi as Amir, Ivy Vahanian as Emily and Felicia Curry as Jory in Disgraced at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, April 22-May 29, 2016. Photo by C. Stanley Photography.)